Newsletter 2014
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Harpswell Historical Society Newsletter Fall 2014 www.harpswellhistorical.org [email protected] www.facebook.com/harpswellhistoricalsociety The Harpswell Historical Society is dedicated to the discovery, identification, collection, preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of materials relating to the history of Harpswell and its people. Laddie Whidden Reminisces by Louise Huntington Laddie Whidden traces his ancestry on his mother’s side back to Andrew and Benjamin Dunning, members of the early Harpswell community back in the middle of the 18th century. The home of Deacon Andrew Dunning is the handsome old house we all see as we take the Mountain Road between Route 24 and Route 123, and look south. The home was built in 1757 and has been a landmark ever since. Benjamin Dunning was a magistrate who served as an Overseer of Bowdoin College from 1800 until 1808. Another ancestor, Joseph Ewing, from Scotland, owned a tract of land on Sebascodegan Island on the shores of what would become known as Ewing Narrows. The town maintained a ferry here in the 1700’s so the people could cross over to the Neck and attend church at the Old Meeting House, which was the first church. The records show that two of the ferry tenders were Alexander Ewing and another was Henry Barnes. Laddie, whose real name is Malcolm B. Whidden, Jr., was born in 1931 in Cundy’s Harbor. His family moved to Brunswick when he was three years old and lived there for two years. His father, Malcolm, worked as a millwright at the Cabot Mill. As Laddie grew up the family moved to Harpswell Neck where he attended the Harpswell Center School except for two years when some of the grades went to West Harpswell. He and Hannah (Norton) Dring were the only two people in his class for a number of years. After finishing 8th grade, he attended Brunswick High School where he took the shop course, an excellent fit for a person with his strong abilities in mechanics and building. Contents After finishing high school in 1949, Laddie worked with his father trawling Laddie Whidden Reminisces ......... 1 in the spring and also at several jobs that Laddie Whidden to the Rescue ..... 2 included boat building and construc- Memories of Ice Harvesting .......... 3 tion. He served four years in the Navy Outhouse Needed! ........................ 5 as a machinist’s mate. During that time, Betty Bailey Behanna ..................... 5 when he could get home, he worked on What Harpswell Means To Me ...... 6 a thirty-foot lobster boat that he had set Help Us Cut Our Costs ................. 7 up outdoors by his father’s shop. It didn’t HHS Annual Meeting - get finished until he got home for good. August 20, 2014 ....................... 7 Whidden, continued on p. 2, Whidden, continued from page 1 Laddie Whidden Laddie met his future wife Kay at the urging of her to the Rescue younger brother. They built their home on property by Evangeline Sparks owned by Laddie’s father on Clark Shore Road where Laddie Whidden’s ser- many family members now live. They have two children: vice to the community Rhonda, born in 1958, and Clayton, born five years later. started way before he be- During the fifties and early sixties there were two came a town Selectman. attempts to separate the town. The first was when Evangeline Morse Sparks the Navy lengthened the runways at the Naval Air remembers when, at the age Station. This caused the Middle Bay Road, as well of six, she and two friends, as a new road that connected with Route 24, to be Ellen and Carol Bibber, closed. Committees were formed to see if the Navy were playing down by the or Federal Government would fund the building of brook on the Allen Point a bridge. As Laddie says, “It didn’t get anywhere.” Road in West Harpswell. It A move to separate the town in two was made but was at the edge of darkness did not pass, but there were a lot of hard feelings one wintery day. Vange de- in town. cided to try walking across The second effort at separation was caused by the the brook that ran from building of an addition to the new school on Great under the road near Roy’s Island while they were still using the two old schools at Corner. Often the dare dev- West Harpswell and North Harpswell. Although this il in the group, she went for made economic sense, a lot of people were very upset. it. After taking several steps The second separation move failed, but according to onto the mushy surface, she Laddie it left half of the people in town not speaking started sinking into the icy with the other half. water midway across. Lad- Two local citizens on Harpswell Neck identified die, a high school student, their friend Laddie as a potential and much-needed happened to be passing by peace-maker who had connections on both sides of the brook and came to her town. Laddie says that one day, Henry Barnes and rescue with some difficulty. Ned Frost came to his door with nomination papers She admits to her near for selectman, all filled out. It was 1962, and Laddie panic and her gratefulness won that election. In 1966 the first money was set to Laddie. She recalls that aside in a sinking fund at Town Meeting to build what he didn’t scold her and in would become the Mountain Road and a bridge over fact said nothing. Ewing Narrows. Eventually, using funds from the state, the county, and the town, the bridge was built, uniting the town geographically, and opening up the stunning view we should never take for granted. Laddie served as selectman for the next 26 years, as his long-suffering wife kept wondering when he would ever retire. Among other things, Laddie is a fisherman, carpenter, and mechanic, and he is possessed of a strong love for his town and a deep sense of duty. He is also blessed with an incredible memory. People in town remember him as a completely unflappable selectman, a person who didn’t speak until the moment was right. He could clarify the most tangled legal problems with fewer words than any of us could think of. He had a real sense for doing the right thing for the good of the town. His evenhandedness, year after year, helped Harpswell weather a lot of storms. Whidden continued on page 3 Page 2 Whidden, continued from p. 2 Memories of Ice Harvesting During Laddie’s years as selectman, by Pat Moody many new families moved to town. From In 1998, my 3rd and 4th grade stu- being a quiet old-fashioned fishing town, dents at West Harpswell School had the it was turning into a very mixed modern opportunity to interview several Harp- community. At the same time, town gov- swell residents. The project was funded ernment was becoming quite complex as by the Annenberg Rural Challenge Grant. state and federal regulations multiplied. Two other teachers, Martha Burtt and Operating from the Town Office in the Ken Bedder, from the Harpswell Island two small rooms upstairs in the Old School also worked on the project. Their Meeting House was challenging. There students interviewed people from Orr’s, was hardly room to spread out the tax Bailey, and Great Island, and my students maps on the office work table. Desks and talked to people on Harpswell Neck. The office equipment were cheek by jowl, and interviews were taped, and at a later time it was a challenge for the office person- the students wrote about the people that nel to maneuver in that crowded space. they had interviewed. Stories from both Furthermore, the Old Meeting House sides were then compiled in a booklet has no plumbing to this day. (which is available at the Historical Eventually the inevitable occurred, Society). and a committee was established to plan One of the people interviewed was a modern building for conducting the Arnold LeMay. Arnie is no longer living, town’s business. No longer would taxes but at the time of the interview he was be paid at Beverly Bibber’s house or voter 81 years old and well known to many registrations be recorded at Clara Mer- Harpswell people. My own first meeting riman’s home upstairs at Garrison Hill with Arnie was when I was 3 years old Farm, nor would legal documents be and was asked to be a flower girl at Arnie’s filled out at Frances Johnson’s kitchen wedding. At that time, Arnie’s bride, Vir- table. At last, in 1987, the new Town ginia, was a neighbor of mine. The only Office was built on town land beside details of the wedding that I remember Strawberry Creek. It was the end of an are totally self-centered – wearing a pretty era, and Laddie retired in 1988. dress and having little sandwiches, cake, More recently, Laddie and many oth- and punch after the ceremony. er town residents worked long and hard My reason for including Arnie in our to clarify the ancient boundary between interviews was that I felt it would be an the towns of Harpswell and Brunswick. opportunity for my students to learn In spite of the group’s best efforts that about ice harvesting in Harpswell, an im- included research into centuries-old re- portant industry in its time, but one that cords in Boston, relevant official authori- is unfamiliar to most children of today. ties decided against any change, and the We learned that the LeMay family group had to resort to placing a marker started their ice business during the 1880s.